Fic: Losing Your Way 2/2
Title: Losing Your Way 2/2
Fandom: Heroes
Genre: Gen
Characters: Peter, Adam, Nathan
Warnings: Unpleasant themes, mild gore
Rating: R
Spoilers: All of season 2
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I'm just borrowing them.
Summary: Since the bathroom there's been no sign that Adam knows, or cares, where he is.
AN: First part can be found over here
Adam's eyes are still open, he's staring at the ceiling, he's been staring at the ceiling for hours, and before that he was just laying there for hours, with his eyes closed. Nothing changes, nothing at all. Peter's wandered the room twice, sat on the bed, called his name, called his name God knows how many times. He's reached out and touched his skin, clean and half warm where it rests on the sheets, clean and warm and alive, but it doesn't move. It doesn't so much as twitch.
Since the bathroom there's been no sign that Adam knows, or cares, where he is.
The room's dark, Nathan drew the curtains when he brought Adam up here, and Peter has left them drawn ever since. That was two nights ago. The curtains are heavy enough to keep out the sunlight but it still has to be an improvement on total darkness. Peter doesn't know what a year of total darkness could do to a person. A year of nothing, of living in a box hearing nothing but your own breathing, your own muffled screaming, and God he must have screamed until - Peter stands up, does another slow circuit of the room.
It's no different than it's been every other time, he walks to the window, dragging the edge of the curtain aside and looking out. It's something other than sitting in the damn chair, watching Adam take up space.
Peter's always drawn back to the bed eventually though, drawn back close enough that he can make sure Adam is still breathing, close enough to lay his hand against a wrist, or the back of Adam's hand, and make sure he's not cold as death. Because Adam looks anything but immortal like this. There's not a scratch on him, and for the very first time that feels wrong. Like there should be something to see, something Peter can touch, something to fix.
Then he usually goes back to the chair, sits there and accomplishes nothing.
Peter's still at the stage where he expects something, a twitch under his fingers a flicker of eye movement, something. Peter doesn't give up easily. Though Adam hasn't given him anything. He just stares, like he's completely blind.
Peter leans over and opens the drawer beside the bed, rifles through it, shifting a collection of random debris out of the way. He finds a penlight that has rolled all the way to the back, scoops it up. Adam doesn't react at all when Peter tips his head to the side, though he knows his fingers are cold. He shines the light in Adam's left eye and the pupil contracts obediently. The right eye does the same, though it's the only part of Adam that does anything.
He holds his head there for a moment, trying to gage something, anything, from that flat expression. He can just feel the vibration of air where Adam is breathing against the side of his hand.
Peter doesn't ask where Adam is. At the moment he can't think about it. He's still torn about whether to hook up an IV. Adam is alive, he's been alive for a year with no nutrients at all. In fact Peter can only assume he's spent most of the time starving to death, choking to death or drowning in his own blood. Filling his body full of anything at this point, Peter honestly doesn't know if it will do more harm than good. If it will bring him back before he's ready. But letting him lay there and starve goes against everything Peter has ever believed.
He hates the fact that he doesn't know what to do.
***
"He's a vegetable," Nathan says flatly, he doesn't look up at Peter, throwing his signature across a piece of paper that's impossible to read upside down across the kitchen.
Peter shakes his head, even though Nathan can't see. "He's not, he's there somewhere, he has to be."
Nathan's head does tilt then, just a fraction, enough for his eyes to fix Peter from across the room.
"You have to at least face the possibility that he isn't coming back."
"It's only been four days," Peter protests.
"He's not there," Nathan says quietly.
"What about the bathroom?"
"The last gasp of humanity," Nathan suggests. "And none too civilised at that, judging by the way he tried to tear the skin off your arm."
The words sting in a way Peter can't explain, he was there, he remembers, and more than anything he remembers that there was no fury there, just the sort of panic that still makes him feel cold all the way through. Peter swallows the flash of anger that rises, but the words come out clipped and tight.
"Why are you so insistent that he's not coming back?"
"Because I saw the wreck we dragged out of the ground."
Saying it makes Peter see it again, and he doesn't want to, because it doesn't help, it just makes everything worse.
"I know, I saw it too, but you don't know him -"
"Neither do you," Nathan protests. "Not really." Peter wants to protest that he does, but he knows it's not true. He doesn't know Adam, he doesn't even know his real name, or where he's from, or any of what really happened between him and Hiro...in the past. But Peter can't think about Hiro either, can't think about the when or the why. He can't make it personal. Though he thinks it's sliding closer every second.
He pushes himself away from the side, stares at Nathan across the counter and Nathan doesn't look away. Doesn't move, he's standing almost completely straight, hands slipped into his pockets. Peter's torn between wanting to shake him, wanting to demand that he react to this, damn it, and wanting, desperately wanting some of that control for himself.
"I know he's four hundred years old," Peter says quietly.
Nathan nods, unsurprised, unimpressed.
"And he spent one of them in a box six feet underground, have you ever read anything about experiments into solitary confinement, into sensory deprivation?"
"He's not like other people, he's stronger than other people."
"No one's that strong," Nathan says honestly and Peter thinks he might just be right.
But accepting that is - they haven't even really tried. It's only been days, Adam was in jail for thirty years.
"His brain's been starved of oxygen," Peter offers. "Maybe he just needs a little longer."
"After a year spent choking on his own breath I'd imagine oxygen is the last thing he wants," Nathan says quietly.
"Jesus." All the fight goes out of Peter in one word. He tips his head forward into his hands, presses his fingers against his forehead. He feels like he's not doing enough, like he's not doing anything but pacing, and waiting, and it's like he can't draw a whole breath. "I just need to do something, I feel so damn useless." The last word rings around the kitchen, and Peter would very much like to kick something but there's nothing in reach.
"What about Mohinder?" Nathan slides his hands out of his pockets, lays them behind him on the side, and it's a more relaxed pose. It's a 'willing to be convinced' pose. Choosing to have faith in Peter when he doesn't deserve it. When he's losing faith in his own ability to do anything, for all his powers.
He exhales, shakes his head.
"He's a geneticist I don't think he's going to be much help, I'm not sure he would help. He's not...he's not the same."
Nathan gives him a look, the one that says 'which of us are' but there's another conversation entirely.
"Besides there's not actually anything wrong with Adam, and the fact that he can heal, the fact that he can heal everything is the only reason he's still here."
"Not completely here, in a coma here maybe."
"He's not in a coma," Peter says roughly. "He's awake, he's just choosing not to be here." And to be brutally honest Peter can't blame him. What he thought he had to come back to, what he must have come back to a thousand times...because a lot of the blood had been fresh.
Peter has an unshakable, creeping feeling that Adam will be back eventually. But in what state, and for how long, he doesn't have a clue. He just needs to think of something, some way to reach him. He feels slightly sick just thinking about it.
"If I can get inside his head -"
Nathan sways forward and catches his wrist, catches it and holds it tightly, demanding Peter's attention and getting it.
"Don't you dare." The fingers tighten, hard enough for Peter's skin to go white.
"Nathan -"
"Promise me, promise me you won't try. If you never do anything for me again, do that."
Peter is forced to look Nathan in the face and there's something that for a fraction of a second is almost terrified behind Nathan's eyes and it's such a shock that Peter finds himself nodding, desperately nodding.
"Ok, ok I won't," and there's such a sick sense of relief behind the words that it makes him feel more than a little ashamed.
***
When Peter opens the door to Adam's room the first thing he sees is red.
The normally white sheets that cover Adam are now a red ruin, like the colour has literally erupted and fallen down on them.
"Oh my -"
Peter stumbles through the doorway in one movement, then all the way to the bed. Adam's arm is bright and wet from the elbow down, dotted with crimson all the way to his shoulder. It's blood, blood everywhere. The sheets are absorbing the weight of it in a rapidly spreading stain. There's no one in here, no one but Adam, no one but Adam laying still and red, clean skin still a shocked pale against the white and the red.
Peter checks his pulse, finds it quick and alive, and for a moment that is stunning enough.
But there's something other than blood on the skin.
When he turns it he finds the quickly fading impression of teeth marks - Peter drops Adam's arm and takes a clattering step back.
For a long horrible moment all that he can hear is the whistling, muffled thump of his own heartbeat. He's sweating cold and he's either going to throw up or pass out if he doesn't. He sits down on the floor with a thud, tips his head forward and breathes, slow deep breaths that sound ridiculous but make the world gradually slide back into place. He can hear the quiet of the room again, swallowing thickly, he feels cold and he can feel everything sliding helplessly into wrong. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't have a clue what to do.
He snatches the clock off of the bedside table and hurls it across the room, it smashes on the opposite wall and shatters into a hundred pieces, leaves a gruesome dent and a jagged scratch in the plaster. The pieces rain down, settle in the carpet, sprayed across the chair and the dresser.
He tips his head back against the bed, and his breath shakes out of him.
"I hate you," Peter says softly, though it's a lie, a ragged awful lie. Peter hates what Adam did, hates the way this is happening, hates the way it makes him feel, hates the creeping awful feeling that this is going wrong and there's already nothing left of Adam to save.
And he hates Hiro, for not knowing what a truly horrible thing he'd done.
"You're a fucking mess." Peter adds, and drags hands through his hair. He grits his teeth, swallows a lump, then another, and then he just doesn't bother. He lets it sit there at the back of his throat.
Because, in all the ways that matter, Adam is still in the ground.
***
Nathan says nothing for a long time, he just lets Peter stare out of the back window, holding his own elbow and frowning at the rapidly darkening sky. He stands behind Peter though, not moving to do anything, not distracting himself with paperwork, he's just waiting, waiting for Peter to speak. And just like that Peter needs to fill the silence with something.
"I don't know what to do," he admits.
There's a pause, like Nathan hasn't been holding in words the whole time, like he didn't know exactly what Peter was going to say.
"You could tie him down," Nathan offers, and his voice isn't hard.
"No," Peter says roughly. "God no, I couldn't."
Nathan drifts closer, leans against the window next to him, and it has to be freezing through the material of his shirt.
"Self-mutilation, even on someone that can re-grow their own limbs, is not a healthy sign," Nathan says softly. He's not looking at him he's looking at the glass.
Peter rubs his face.
"I know," he admits and his voice is suddenly furious, there are a million things he wants to say but he can't, because half of them he doesn't know how to phrase and the other half, Jesus, the other half Nathan would chew him out for so damn hard. "Don't you think I know that. We can't even imagine Nathan, don't you get that, we saw but we can't imagine." His voice is too loud, he's vibrating and he doesn't even know whether he's angry or upset. He knows he can't afford to lose control like this but how can anyone stay calm, how can he not be furious about how useless this makes him feel.
"No," Nathan says simply. "I think you're imagining too hard. You can't change it and it's not your fault, and if you can't bring him back that won't be your fault either. You have to realise that and you have to accept that."
"How can you make that sound so easy?"
"Peter you're doing this to yourself. You never prepare yourself for the worst you let everything in, you let everything get under your skin."
"I kind of think that's how I work," Peter points out.
"You've never been able to distance yourself but you have to do it with this. It's too much, it's too deep. You cannot let yourself fall in."
Peter knows he's right, he knows it because he doesn't want to be inside it. He doesn't want to think too much about it because he doesn't think he is that strong. And if Adam is going to be reachable it's going to be from this side.
***
The sheets are clean again, Adam is clean again, it's like nothing happened.
All that's left is the blood under Peter's fingernails.
He's thrown the sheets in the trash, and one of the pillows, unsalvageable.
Which is a brutal word that Peter can't help but turn over and over in his head. It's not the sort of word that should ever be used to describe a person. It's too cold, too distant, too hopeless.
He absolutely refuses to use it where Adam's concerned.
***
It's quiet downstairs, Peter can hear the creak and shift of the house over the sound of pencils on paper. He's drawing a landscape, just to be safe, no people in it. Nothing happening in the background, no weather, just a landscape. He doesn't think he could handle anything ridiculously prophetic at the moment.
He's taken a break from wandering around Adam's room like he's a ghost. Because that's what it is now, not his room, it's Adam's room.
He listens to the clatters and thumps that suggest Nathan has just come in through the front door, he puts his feet up on the end of the couch, finishes the edge of a tree and waits for him to appear.
"How did it go?" Peter asks when Nathan is a shape in the door frame.
"It's nice the way people are still surprised I'm not dead," Nathan says, and there's a thin thread of sarcastic humour under the words.
"That's what you get when you suddenly stop being famous," Peter points out helpfully.
He stops drawing and swivels round completely.
"What does Matt think?"
"He thinks you're insane, and this is Parkman we're talking about here, fountain of human kindness." Nathan steps into the room. "But he understands why?"
"Did you tell him how we found him?"
"I didn't have to," Nathan says pointedly. "And that will teach him to read people's thoughts when he's not sure what he's going to find."
Nathan slides into the chair opposite him.
Peter looks up, frowns. "You never ask me if there's any change."
"I never expect there to be," Nathan says honestly. "And I know you'll tell me, and I won't just one day find him randomly wandering the kitchen like some damn vampire"
Peter lets the sketchpad he's been doodling in slide down his lap.
"You make it sound like he's some sort of school project."
"Isn't he?"
The question is asked so quickly that Peter is angry before he even realises it.
"Don't be an asshole."
Nathan just looks at him.
"It's not an experiment for gods sake, it's not something I'm doing because I have nothing better to do."
"Maybe a little experimenting might help the situation."
Peter flings his pencil down on the table.
"You have a suggestion?"
"Well for a start maybe you shouldn't leave him lying flat on his back, maybe you should move him."
"He's not a doll," Peter says hotly.
He's doing a pretty good impression of one
"I heard that."
Nathan doesn't even bother to be offended.
"All I'm saying is that it can't help to be laying there staring at the fucking ceiling."
The words hit a nerve, something still raw and angry, Peter throws the pad he's still holding down and drags himself off the couch.
"Then you try," he says harshly. "Do whatever the hell you want."
He slams the door behind him.
***
Peter knows he should eat something. He knows theoretically that he's leaving himself hungry as some sort of punishment, he's not stupid. But it's been a bad day. He's in an untidy sprawl on the end of Adam's bed, back braced on the metal end. The chair he normally sits in is upended at the other end of the room.
One of the legs is two feet away from it, and Peter isn't sorry at all about the fact that he's actually broken something.
Adam has no opinion on the broken chair whatsoever, which isn't a surprise.
"I'm trying," Peter says quietly. "I'm trying but you have to give me something, Adam, or I'm just wandering around in the dark."
He leans back on his hands and stares at Adam, and for the first time he's actually angry at him. Because Adam is the one who has all the plans, Adam is the scheming, manipulative one, who's spent decades learning how to make people do what he wants. And now he's just laying there doing nothing and it's not helpful at all and how is Peter supposed to change that?
How the hell do you bring someone back from that?
He promised Nathan he wouldn't go inside Adam's head and he won't, he honestly doesn't want to. He doesn't want to know what's in there because he thinks if it's bad, if it's all twisted up then he thinks he might lose faith completely that Adam is ever coming back. People say that sitting around and waiting is the hardest part, and it's true.
"You brought me all the way here, your screwed-up, demented plans put you in the ground, and I got you out. The least you could give me is a little gratitude."
Peter glares at him, which manages nothing but to make him feel like an idiot.
"I'd settle for an insult," he says weakly.
There's a long quiet second where nothing moves.
"I'll bet you've used people your whole life, and now the one time -" Peter fists his hand in the sheet, swallows, because he doesn't want to shout in here, he doesn't want to be angry in here. "The one time you have to rely on someone, the one time, you give up. And Nathan thinks I shouldn't be leaving you there, like you're dead already. Nathan thinks I should drag you back kicking and screaming if necessary."
Peter can't help laughing at that, and he doesn't even know why.
"It's what he'd do for me."
Because he would, Peter knows he would, and that hurts in a way he wouldn't change for the world.
"And I've decided he's probably right. So you're not getting an easy ride anymore, if I have to drag you out of this bed and leave you in the damn rain you're coming back."
He's talking to the curve of Adam's face, pale but shadowed in the dimness of the room, and Peter is suddenly sick of it. He pushes himself off of the bed and strides over to the window.
"No more laying in the dark," he says roughly, and drags the curtains open.
***
Peter has been staring out of the kitchen window again.
He doesn't even notice Nathan come up behind him until he puts a hand on his shoulder.
"You look exhausted,"
"I feel exhausted," Peter admits, and judging by the pause even Nathan is surprised that he's actually admitted it. He takes a deep breath that doesn't manage to shift any of the weight across his shoulders and then lets it all fall out again.
"Go to bed," Nathan says roughly. "I'll watch Adam for a while."
Peter doesn't protest, he thinks staring at a ceiling of his own will make a nice change.
"He doesn't like you much you know." He feels duty bound to tell him.
"Well then it'll be a nice change for him," Nathan points out.
Peter lays a hand on the edge of Nathan's arm on his way past.
***
Nathan's already clattering about downstairs again when Peter gets up, but the clattering has stopped by the time he gets out of the bathroom, and he leaves his hair to drip along the landing while he goes to collect new towels.
A few droplets of water never ruined anyone's carpet, no matter what his mom says.
Before heading downstairs he'll swing into Adam's room, just to check.
He pushes the door open and stops in the threshold. The towels take a sliding tumble out of his hands.
Adam's sitting up.
He's folded awkwardly upright. The pillows have tumbled away behind him, one has fallen from the bed entirely. The sheets are pooled in Adam's lap and he's staring at them like he doesn't know what they are. Like he doesn't know why they're there. Then he drags a long, shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Peter takes a faltering step forward, watches Adam's fingers very slowly drift across the pale whiteness of the sheets. He sways sickly from side to side, not even attempting to catch himself on his hands.
His eyes may be shut but Peter can still see movement under the lids. He takes two more steps, not even daring to breathe, hands held out by his sides. He reaches the bed and very carefully settles his hand on the end of it. His mouth feels bone dry and useless but he needs to speak, he has to speak.
"Adam?" Peter tries softly.
Adam jerks all the way back in one movement. The headboard cracks into the wall, followed closely by Adam's head. He topples forward onto his hands, briefly stunned. But the fact that Adam has reacted to him, that he's here, and he knows Peter's here. It's something Peter grabs with both hands. He moves close enough that he can feel the quick flare of Adam's breath against his face. Not steady now, using up air at a frightening rate, and Peter thinks that maybe that's something he hasn't been able to do for a long time.
"Adam." Peter settles a knee on the bed.
His eyes are still shut, and Peter doesn't know what he's blocking out, what he doesn't want to see. Because if it's the fact that Peter's real....
"Adam can you hear me?"
"Go away," Adam says thickly, his voice is strange, helplessly slurred and too quiet, he flinches under the sound of it, sways slightly, hands buried in the white sheets.
"You're not in the ground."
Adam rolls his head away from Peter's voice.
"Shut up," he says quietly, his fingers crumple little pieces of sheet, over and over.
"Adam you're not in the ground."
"Shut up," he says again, swallowing in ragged, sharp little movements that make his throat look narrow and fragile.
"Adam?"
"Shut up!" He lashes out with an arm and Peter catches it. And this time it's not cold and covered with blood and gore, it's smooth, and warm, and twisting under Peter's fingers. Twitching like it's in pain.
"Don't." Adam's voice is rough and horrible.
"Open your eyes," Peter says simply, and Adam makes a wounded noise like it's the cruelest command he could ever have given.
"No." Adam pulls his arm back but Peter catches his fingers, catches them and doesn't let them go.
"Will you trust me for once," Peter demands.
Adam opens his eyes.
He looks at him, and sees him, and there's some sort of horrible mixture of confusion and horror behind his eyes. Then there's a slow, shocked breath, it's caught and held for a long beat, and then Adam is shivering, shivering and taking huge, ragged breaths that sound like they might break him open. Peter doesn't let go of his hand, doesn't move from the edge of the bed. His heart is slamming inside his chest, and he's trying so hard to keep his voice calm, to keep it slow that it's shaking.
"We dug you out of the ground," he says quietly. "We dug you out of the ground twelve days ago, you're in New York."
Adam sways forward and Peter catches him. He's a sharp weight against Peter's shoulder, forehead resting against his cheek. There's a quiet breathy noise that ghosts over Peter's skin, and it takes him a second to realise what it is. Adam is laughing, a thin reedy noise that has nothing to do with amusement. It's a horrible noise, but it doesn't last very long.
The noises that come after it are worse.
Fandom: Heroes
Genre: Gen
Characters: Peter, Adam, Nathan
Warnings: Unpleasant themes, mild gore
Rating: R
Spoilers: All of season 2
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I'm just borrowing them.
Summary: Since the bathroom there's been no sign that Adam knows, or cares, where he is.
AN: First part can be found over here
Adam's eyes are still open, he's staring at the ceiling, he's been staring at the ceiling for hours, and before that he was just laying there for hours, with his eyes closed. Nothing changes, nothing at all. Peter's wandered the room twice, sat on the bed, called his name, called his name God knows how many times. He's reached out and touched his skin, clean and half warm where it rests on the sheets, clean and warm and alive, but it doesn't move. It doesn't so much as twitch.
Since the bathroom there's been no sign that Adam knows, or cares, where he is.
The room's dark, Nathan drew the curtains when he brought Adam up here, and Peter has left them drawn ever since. That was two nights ago. The curtains are heavy enough to keep out the sunlight but it still has to be an improvement on total darkness. Peter doesn't know what a year of total darkness could do to a person. A year of nothing, of living in a box hearing nothing but your own breathing, your own muffled screaming, and God he must have screamed until - Peter stands up, does another slow circuit of the room.
It's no different than it's been every other time, he walks to the window, dragging the edge of the curtain aside and looking out. It's something other than sitting in the damn chair, watching Adam take up space.
Peter's always drawn back to the bed eventually though, drawn back close enough that he can make sure Adam is still breathing, close enough to lay his hand against a wrist, or the back of Adam's hand, and make sure he's not cold as death. Because Adam looks anything but immortal like this. There's not a scratch on him, and for the very first time that feels wrong. Like there should be something to see, something Peter can touch, something to fix.
Then he usually goes back to the chair, sits there and accomplishes nothing.
Peter's still at the stage where he expects something, a twitch under his fingers a flicker of eye movement, something. Peter doesn't give up easily. Though Adam hasn't given him anything. He just stares, like he's completely blind.
Peter leans over and opens the drawer beside the bed, rifles through it, shifting a collection of random debris out of the way. He finds a penlight that has rolled all the way to the back, scoops it up. Adam doesn't react at all when Peter tips his head to the side, though he knows his fingers are cold. He shines the light in Adam's left eye and the pupil contracts obediently. The right eye does the same, though it's the only part of Adam that does anything.
He holds his head there for a moment, trying to gage something, anything, from that flat expression. He can just feel the vibration of air where Adam is breathing against the side of his hand.
Peter doesn't ask where Adam is. At the moment he can't think about it. He's still torn about whether to hook up an IV. Adam is alive, he's been alive for a year with no nutrients at all. In fact Peter can only assume he's spent most of the time starving to death, choking to death or drowning in his own blood. Filling his body full of anything at this point, Peter honestly doesn't know if it will do more harm than good. If it will bring him back before he's ready. But letting him lay there and starve goes against everything Peter has ever believed.
He hates the fact that he doesn't know what to do.
***
"He's a vegetable," Nathan says flatly, he doesn't look up at Peter, throwing his signature across a piece of paper that's impossible to read upside down across the kitchen.
Peter shakes his head, even though Nathan can't see. "He's not, he's there somewhere, he has to be."
Nathan's head does tilt then, just a fraction, enough for his eyes to fix Peter from across the room.
"You have to at least face the possibility that he isn't coming back."
"It's only been four days," Peter protests.
"He's not there," Nathan says quietly.
"What about the bathroom?"
"The last gasp of humanity," Nathan suggests. "And none too civilised at that, judging by the way he tried to tear the skin off your arm."
The words sting in a way Peter can't explain, he was there, he remembers, and more than anything he remembers that there was no fury there, just the sort of panic that still makes him feel cold all the way through. Peter swallows the flash of anger that rises, but the words come out clipped and tight.
"Why are you so insistent that he's not coming back?"
"Because I saw the wreck we dragged out of the ground."
Saying it makes Peter see it again, and he doesn't want to, because it doesn't help, it just makes everything worse.
"I know, I saw it too, but you don't know him -"
"Neither do you," Nathan protests. "Not really." Peter wants to protest that he does, but he knows it's not true. He doesn't know Adam, he doesn't even know his real name, or where he's from, or any of what really happened between him and Hiro...in the past. But Peter can't think about Hiro either, can't think about the when or the why. He can't make it personal. Though he thinks it's sliding closer every second.
He pushes himself away from the side, stares at Nathan across the counter and Nathan doesn't look away. Doesn't move, he's standing almost completely straight, hands slipped into his pockets. Peter's torn between wanting to shake him, wanting to demand that he react to this, damn it, and wanting, desperately wanting some of that control for himself.
"I know he's four hundred years old," Peter says quietly.
Nathan nods, unsurprised, unimpressed.
"And he spent one of them in a box six feet underground, have you ever read anything about experiments into solitary confinement, into sensory deprivation?"
"He's not like other people, he's stronger than other people."
"No one's that strong," Nathan says honestly and Peter thinks he might just be right.
But accepting that is - they haven't even really tried. It's only been days, Adam was in jail for thirty years.
"His brain's been starved of oxygen," Peter offers. "Maybe he just needs a little longer."
"After a year spent choking on his own breath I'd imagine oxygen is the last thing he wants," Nathan says quietly.
"Jesus." All the fight goes out of Peter in one word. He tips his head forward into his hands, presses his fingers against his forehead. He feels like he's not doing enough, like he's not doing anything but pacing, and waiting, and it's like he can't draw a whole breath. "I just need to do something, I feel so damn useless." The last word rings around the kitchen, and Peter would very much like to kick something but there's nothing in reach.
"What about Mohinder?" Nathan slides his hands out of his pockets, lays them behind him on the side, and it's a more relaxed pose. It's a 'willing to be convinced' pose. Choosing to have faith in Peter when he doesn't deserve it. When he's losing faith in his own ability to do anything, for all his powers.
He exhales, shakes his head.
"He's a geneticist I don't think he's going to be much help, I'm not sure he would help. He's not...he's not the same."
Nathan gives him a look, the one that says 'which of us are' but there's another conversation entirely.
"Besides there's not actually anything wrong with Adam, and the fact that he can heal, the fact that he can heal everything is the only reason he's still here."
"Not completely here, in a coma here maybe."
"He's not in a coma," Peter says roughly. "He's awake, he's just choosing not to be here." And to be brutally honest Peter can't blame him. What he thought he had to come back to, what he must have come back to a thousand times...because a lot of the blood had been fresh.
Peter has an unshakable, creeping feeling that Adam will be back eventually. But in what state, and for how long, he doesn't have a clue. He just needs to think of something, some way to reach him. He feels slightly sick just thinking about it.
"If I can get inside his head -"
Nathan sways forward and catches his wrist, catches it and holds it tightly, demanding Peter's attention and getting it.
"Don't you dare." The fingers tighten, hard enough for Peter's skin to go white.
"Nathan -"
"Promise me, promise me you won't try. If you never do anything for me again, do that."
Peter is forced to look Nathan in the face and there's something that for a fraction of a second is almost terrified behind Nathan's eyes and it's such a shock that Peter finds himself nodding, desperately nodding.
"Ok, ok I won't," and there's such a sick sense of relief behind the words that it makes him feel more than a little ashamed.
***
When Peter opens the door to Adam's room the first thing he sees is red.
The normally white sheets that cover Adam are now a red ruin, like the colour has literally erupted and fallen down on them.
"Oh my -"
Peter stumbles through the doorway in one movement, then all the way to the bed. Adam's arm is bright and wet from the elbow down, dotted with crimson all the way to his shoulder. It's blood, blood everywhere. The sheets are absorbing the weight of it in a rapidly spreading stain. There's no one in here, no one but Adam, no one but Adam laying still and red, clean skin still a shocked pale against the white and the red.
Peter checks his pulse, finds it quick and alive, and for a moment that is stunning enough.
But there's something other than blood on the skin.
When he turns it he finds the quickly fading impression of teeth marks - Peter drops Adam's arm and takes a clattering step back.
For a long horrible moment all that he can hear is the whistling, muffled thump of his own heartbeat. He's sweating cold and he's either going to throw up or pass out if he doesn't. He sits down on the floor with a thud, tips his head forward and breathes, slow deep breaths that sound ridiculous but make the world gradually slide back into place. He can hear the quiet of the room again, swallowing thickly, he feels cold and he can feel everything sliding helplessly into wrong. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't have a clue what to do.
He snatches the clock off of the bedside table and hurls it across the room, it smashes on the opposite wall and shatters into a hundred pieces, leaves a gruesome dent and a jagged scratch in the plaster. The pieces rain down, settle in the carpet, sprayed across the chair and the dresser.
He tips his head back against the bed, and his breath shakes out of him.
"I hate you," Peter says softly, though it's a lie, a ragged awful lie. Peter hates what Adam did, hates the way this is happening, hates the way it makes him feel, hates the creeping awful feeling that this is going wrong and there's already nothing left of Adam to save.
And he hates Hiro, for not knowing what a truly horrible thing he'd done.
"You're a fucking mess." Peter adds, and drags hands through his hair. He grits his teeth, swallows a lump, then another, and then he just doesn't bother. He lets it sit there at the back of his throat.
Because, in all the ways that matter, Adam is still in the ground.
***
Nathan says nothing for a long time, he just lets Peter stare out of the back window, holding his own elbow and frowning at the rapidly darkening sky. He stands behind Peter though, not moving to do anything, not distracting himself with paperwork, he's just waiting, waiting for Peter to speak. And just like that Peter needs to fill the silence with something.
"I don't know what to do," he admits.
There's a pause, like Nathan hasn't been holding in words the whole time, like he didn't know exactly what Peter was going to say.
"You could tie him down," Nathan offers, and his voice isn't hard.
"No," Peter says roughly. "God no, I couldn't."
Nathan drifts closer, leans against the window next to him, and it has to be freezing through the material of his shirt.
"Self-mutilation, even on someone that can re-grow their own limbs, is not a healthy sign," Nathan says softly. He's not looking at him he's looking at the glass.
Peter rubs his face.
"I know," he admits and his voice is suddenly furious, there are a million things he wants to say but he can't, because half of them he doesn't know how to phrase and the other half, Jesus, the other half Nathan would chew him out for so damn hard. "Don't you think I know that. We can't even imagine Nathan, don't you get that, we saw but we can't imagine." His voice is too loud, he's vibrating and he doesn't even know whether he's angry or upset. He knows he can't afford to lose control like this but how can anyone stay calm, how can he not be furious about how useless this makes him feel.
"No," Nathan says simply. "I think you're imagining too hard. You can't change it and it's not your fault, and if you can't bring him back that won't be your fault either. You have to realise that and you have to accept that."
"How can you make that sound so easy?"
"Peter you're doing this to yourself. You never prepare yourself for the worst you let everything in, you let everything get under your skin."
"I kind of think that's how I work," Peter points out.
"You've never been able to distance yourself but you have to do it with this. It's too much, it's too deep. You cannot let yourself fall in."
Peter knows he's right, he knows it because he doesn't want to be inside it. He doesn't want to think too much about it because he doesn't think he is that strong. And if Adam is going to be reachable it's going to be from this side.
***
The sheets are clean again, Adam is clean again, it's like nothing happened.
All that's left is the blood under Peter's fingernails.
He's thrown the sheets in the trash, and one of the pillows, unsalvageable.
Which is a brutal word that Peter can't help but turn over and over in his head. It's not the sort of word that should ever be used to describe a person. It's too cold, too distant, too hopeless.
He absolutely refuses to use it where Adam's concerned.
***
It's quiet downstairs, Peter can hear the creak and shift of the house over the sound of pencils on paper. He's drawing a landscape, just to be safe, no people in it. Nothing happening in the background, no weather, just a landscape. He doesn't think he could handle anything ridiculously prophetic at the moment.
He's taken a break from wandering around Adam's room like he's a ghost. Because that's what it is now, not his room, it's Adam's room.
He listens to the clatters and thumps that suggest Nathan has just come in through the front door, he puts his feet up on the end of the couch, finishes the edge of a tree and waits for him to appear.
"How did it go?" Peter asks when Nathan is a shape in the door frame.
"It's nice the way people are still surprised I'm not dead," Nathan says, and there's a thin thread of sarcastic humour under the words.
"That's what you get when you suddenly stop being famous," Peter points out helpfully.
He stops drawing and swivels round completely.
"What does Matt think?"
"He thinks you're insane, and this is Parkman we're talking about here, fountain of human kindness." Nathan steps into the room. "But he understands why?"
"Did you tell him how we found him?"
"I didn't have to," Nathan says pointedly. "And that will teach him to read people's thoughts when he's not sure what he's going to find."
Nathan slides into the chair opposite him.
Peter looks up, frowns. "You never ask me if there's any change."
"I never expect there to be," Nathan says honestly. "And I know you'll tell me, and I won't just one day find him randomly wandering the kitchen like some damn vampire"
Peter lets the sketchpad he's been doodling in slide down his lap.
"You make it sound like he's some sort of school project."
"Isn't he?"
The question is asked so quickly that Peter is angry before he even realises it.
"Don't be an asshole."
Nathan just looks at him.
"It's not an experiment for gods sake, it's not something I'm doing because I have nothing better to do."
"Maybe a little experimenting might help the situation."
Peter flings his pencil down on the table.
"You have a suggestion?"
"Well for a start maybe you shouldn't leave him lying flat on his back, maybe you should move him."
"He's not a doll," Peter says hotly.
He's doing a pretty good impression of one
"I heard that."
Nathan doesn't even bother to be offended.
"All I'm saying is that it can't help to be laying there staring at the fucking ceiling."
The words hit a nerve, something still raw and angry, Peter throws the pad he's still holding down and drags himself off the couch.
"Then you try," he says harshly. "Do whatever the hell you want."
He slams the door behind him.
***
Peter knows he should eat something. He knows theoretically that he's leaving himself hungry as some sort of punishment, he's not stupid. But it's been a bad day. He's in an untidy sprawl on the end of Adam's bed, back braced on the metal end. The chair he normally sits in is upended at the other end of the room.
One of the legs is two feet away from it, and Peter isn't sorry at all about the fact that he's actually broken something.
Adam has no opinion on the broken chair whatsoever, which isn't a surprise.
"I'm trying," Peter says quietly. "I'm trying but you have to give me something, Adam, or I'm just wandering around in the dark."
He leans back on his hands and stares at Adam, and for the first time he's actually angry at him. Because Adam is the one who has all the plans, Adam is the scheming, manipulative one, who's spent decades learning how to make people do what he wants. And now he's just laying there doing nothing and it's not helpful at all and how is Peter supposed to change that?
How the hell do you bring someone back from that?
He promised Nathan he wouldn't go inside Adam's head and he won't, he honestly doesn't want to. He doesn't want to know what's in there because he thinks if it's bad, if it's all twisted up then he thinks he might lose faith completely that Adam is ever coming back. People say that sitting around and waiting is the hardest part, and it's true.
"You brought me all the way here, your screwed-up, demented plans put you in the ground, and I got you out. The least you could give me is a little gratitude."
Peter glares at him, which manages nothing but to make him feel like an idiot.
"I'd settle for an insult," he says weakly.
There's a long quiet second where nothing moves.
"I'll bet you've used people your whole life, and now the one time -" Peter fists his hand in the sheet, swallows, because he doesn't want to shout in here, he doesn't want to be angry in here. "The one time you have to rely on someone, the one time, you give up. And Nathan thinks I shouldn't be leaving you there, like you're dead already. Nathan thinks I should drag you back kicking and screaming if necessary."
Peter can't help laughing at that, and he doesn't even know why.
"It's what he'd do for me."
Because he would, Peter knows he would, and that hurts in a way he wouldn't change for the world.
"And I've decided he's probably right. So you're not getting an easy ride anymore, if I have to drag you out of this bed and leave you in the damn rain you're coming back."
He's talking to the curve of Adam's face, pale but shadowed in the dimness of the room, and Peter is suddenly sick of it. He pushes himself off of the bed and strides over to the window.
"No more laying in the dark," he says roughly, and drags the curtains open.
***
Peter has been staring out of the kitchen window again.
He doesn't even notice Nathan come up behind him until he puts a hand on his shoulder.
"You look exhausted,"
"I feel exhausted," Peter admits, and judging by the pause even Nathan is surprised that he's actually admitted it. He takes a deep breath that doesn't manage to shift any of the weight across his shoulders and then lets it all fall out again.
"Go to bed," Nathan says roughly. "I'll watch Adam for a while."
Peter doesn't protest, he thinks staring at a ceiling of his own will make a nice change.
"He doesn't like you much you know." He feels duty bound to tell him.
"Well then it'll be a nice change for him," Nathan points out.
Peter lays a hand on the edge of Nathan's arm on his way past.
***
Nathan's already clattering about downstairs again when Peter gets up, but the clattering has stopped by the time he gets out of the bathroom, and he leaves his hair to drip along the landing while he goes to collect new towels.
A few droplets of water never ruined anyone's carpet, no matter what his mom says.
Before heading downstairs he'll swing into Adam's room, just to check.
He pushes the door open and stops in the threshold. The towels take a sliding tumble out of his hands.
Adam's sitting up.
He's folded awkwardly upright. The pillows have tumbled away behind him, one has fallen from the bed entirely. The sheets are pooled in Adam's lap and he's staring at them like he doesn't know what they are. Like he doesn't know why they're there. Then he drags a long, shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Peter takes a faltering step forward, watches Adam's fingers very slowly drift across the pale whiteness of the sheets. He sways sickly from side to side, not even attempting to catch himself on his hands.
His eyes may be shut but Peter can still see movement under the lids. He takes two more steps, not even daring to breathe, hands held out by his sides. He reaches the bed and very carefully settles his hand on the end of it. His mouth feels bone dry and useless but he needs to speak, he has to speak.
"Adam?" Peter tries softly.
Adam jerks all the way back in one movement. The headboard cracks into the wall, followed closely by Adam's head. He topples forward onto his hands, briefly stunned. But the fact that Adam has reacted to him, that he's here, and he knows Peter's here. It's something Peter grabs with both hands. He moves close enough that he can feel the quick flare of Adam's breath against his face. Not steady now, using up air at a frightening rate, and Peter thinks that maybe that's something he hasn't been able to do for a long time.
"Adam." Peter settles a knee on the bed.
His eyes are still shut, and Peter doesn't know what he's blocking out, what he doesn't want to see. Because if it's the fact that Peter's real....
"Adam can you hear me?"
"Go away," Adam says thickly, his voice is strange, helplessly slurred and too quiet, he flinches under the sound of it, sways slightly, hands buried in the white sheets.
"You're not in the ground."
Adam rolls his head away from Peter's voice.
"Shut up," he says quietly, his fingers crumple little pieces of sheet, over and over.
"Adam you're not in the ground."
"Shut up," he says again, swallowing in ragged, sharp little movements that make his throat look narrow and fragile.
"Adam?"
"Shut up!" He lashes out with an arm and Peter catches it. And this time it's not cold and covered with blood and gore, it's smooth, and warm, and twisting under Peter's fingers. Twitching like it's in pain.
"Don't." Adam's voice is rough and horrible.
"Open your eyes," Peter says simply, and Adam makes a wounded noise like it's the cruelest command he could ever have given.
"No." Adam pulls his arm back but Peter catches his fingers, catches them and doesn't let them go.
"Will you trust me for once," Peter demands.
Adam opens his eyes.
He looks at him, and sees him, and there's some sort of horrible mixture of confusion and horror behind his eyes. Then there's a slow, shocked breath, it's caught and held for a long beat, and then Adam is shivering, shivering and taking huge, ragged breaths that sound like they might break him open. Peter doesn't let go of his hand, doesn't move from the edge of the bed. His heart is slamming inside his chest, and he's trying so hard to keep his voice calm, to keep it slow that it's shaking.
"We dug you out of the ground," he says quietly. "We dug you out of the ground twelve days ago, you're in New York."
Adam sways forward and Peter catches him. He's a sharp weight against Peter's shoulder, forehead resting against his cheek. There's a quiet breathy noise that ghosts over Peter's skin, and it takes him a second to realise what it is. Adam is laughing, a thin reedy noise that has nothing to do with amusement. It's a horrible noise, but it doesn't last very long.
The noises that come after it are worse.